It's hard for me to know
when I remember
crystalline events with shape
or distilled memory of memories
clarified and shining
but shapeless.
It has been so long since
memory was an adjunct to
my life and not a burden on
my soul.
You take a thing and boil it down
and season it with experience
you heard in someone else's life
and wonder that it happened
that way to you too
if ever you realize
all the added spice.
Did anything happen as I
know it did or is it all a
distillation of a diamiond?
Hard in memory, we grind
and chip and polish to a
new cut, many faceted memories
made pebble smooth
to fit a modern setting.
A memory, like any diamond
loses value as it is cut.
Until we are left with a palm
filled with chips, glittering chips,
and find ourselves rich
in that which resembles not
its origin in mind.